


Ephiphany (We Finally Make a Good Decision)

by Vrunka



Series: Mistakes [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Double Penetration, M/M, Monster Gabe, Necrophilia, Tentacle Sex, Violence, happy endings, kind of, this time i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 23:13:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9293942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/pseuds/Vrunka
Summary: Settling. A closure. It's never too late to try again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ahoy ahoy I don't even know what to tag for this mess. More whispering darkness tendrils doing Sex things if you couldn't glean that from the tags. That's really the major one.
> 
> Introspective old man should be a tag too.
> 
> Necrophilia too to be safe? Reaper is as alive as he ever is but cold, dead flesh is a describer I use one too many times probably so like...idk
> 
> This is for all of you who read and enjoyed parts one and two.
> 
> EDIT: Aaaaaaaaaaand Whynotmyart has done it again! Art that makes me cry! Color palette that ends my life! Oh man. Check it out, send them love:
> 
> http://whynotmyart.tumblr.com/post/157405700956/hey-yall-pls-read-this-fic-series-by-vrunkas-its

Maybe Soldier: 76 is just losing his touch.

The gun is shaking against his temple, the sight has already dug into the skin of his hairline. He can feel the pressure, a bright line of pain that goes with the tearing of his flesh. It will probably be healed by the time this has come to whatever conclusion it's going to come to.

The kid's finger rests outside the trigger guard. Mercy or stupidity, Soldier isn't sure. Mercy, in this case, perhaps is stupidity. A rookie mistake.

He is, after all, just a kid.

Too skinny and big-eyed. An animal of some sort, tree dwelling, nocturnal. Soldier moves his head just the slightest and the gun presses tighter. Skittish but not losing it yet; the kid may be young but he's not as hopeless as all that.

Or maybe he is.

Talon's sort of a go-nowhere occupation. Soldier doubts someone this young has it in them to become a high ranking terrorist in this operation.

The kid's talking quickly into the radio clipped to his shoulder. A blurred mix of a language Soldier can't quite place. Not Spanish. Maybe Italian. He thinks he hears some French, a phrase or two he could recognize if he was ever really pressed, but it's gone as soon as he thinks he catches it.

The kid licks his lips.

Soldier does some mental math.

It would be easy enough to snap the kid's arm at the elbow. A hand to his wrist, a twist of Soldier's own head to keep the gun from firing into his skull, and his second hand clipping neatly, straight up into the kid's joint. It would be over in the half a second it took to relocate his finger from outside the trigger guard to inside.

He can see the vague calculations in his visor. Angles and dimensions.

And something else...

A flurry of movement from one of the doors further down the corridor. The shadowed darkness seems to pulse and breathe. The visor tracks the movement, and Soldier does not break the kid.

He waits.

It's sort of why he came here in the first place.

Though, he had not been quite expecting this turn of events. Getting caught wasn't part of the original plan.

Getting old. That must be it. Losing some of his edges.

"Yeah," the kid says, into the radio, jarringly English in his foreign spiel. "I can do that." His eyes are dark, huge, with long lashes. His hair is curly and messy. Roguishly handsome.

Something about him reminds Soldier of Jesse. He wonders, distantly how McCree is doing.

"Ja," the kid says again, followed by another flurry of European mix. His finger slides down the trigger guard. Almost imperceptible movement. But Soldier is better at this, he already knows all the tricks there are.

He tenses.

And everything explodes into motion at once.

The darkness by the door melts. There one minute, gone the next. Faster than a second. Quicker than a blink. It reforms behind the Talon agent. Leaking, liquid-like tendrils, spilling out from a fold in reality. It is not there, and then it is. Impossibly.

Reaper has one of his shotguns aimed at the boy's head. The darkness swells and pulses around him.

Soldier barely has time to breath.

And then he's covered in the kid's brains. The force of the shotgun blast takes off the kid's face, tears through his features leaving only twitching bloody musculature. Pulpy and petaling like some gory flower.

The visor tracks every second of it. Every exploding chunk of skull and brain that spatters against Soldier's face. The boy's body collapses at Soldier's knees. It writhes and spasms as the nerves kick their last, his one hand beats staccato against Soldier's thigh. It is warm.

Reaper had not even hesitated.

It says something, if Soldier wants to sit there and analyze it. But he really doesn't want to.

"What are you playing at?" Reaper asks, sharply. Like he didn't just kill one of his own, like the body isn't there between the two of them like a testament. "What the hell are you even doing here, Jack?"

'Came to find you' sounds too sappy. Soldier cannot make himself say it. He bites his lip, thankful that the visor will leave him mercifully blank. He stands, pushes the corpse slightly away from him with the toe of his boot.

The constant darkness around Reaper whispers and chatters, but Soldier is not close enough to make out the words.

"I just," he begins. Reaper's mask catches the light. "Routine checks," Soldier says. "Sort of working on dismantling the whole of Talon here, but I guess you missed that part."

Reaper's head tips to the side. Soldier can imagine the expression Gabe would be making, if the man in front of him still had Gabe's face.

The narrowed eyes. The thin-lipped frown.

"There's nothing for you here," Reaper says, finally. "You should leave."

"Not gonna threaten to kill me this time?"

It's surreal.

Standing in this hallway with a fucking body between them chatting like it's old times all over again. But Soldier will take anything he can get.

"I saved your life."

Hardly. He had been in relative control of that situation, but Soldier will let him have it. "Yeah," he says. His voice catches, the mask filters the stumble. "You did. Killed your own guy to do it."

Reaper toes the body. Distaste is in the line of his shoulders. The angle he keeps the shotgun cocked at.

"Not one of mine. Talon doesn't mean all that fucking much to me."

Not like Jack does.

Or maybe that isn't what he means at all. Reading too much into it.

"He called for back up, more will be coming when he doesn't report in."

"Sounds like a personal problem," Reaper says. "Guess you should get going then."

"Gabe--"

"Don't." The darkness spikes, tendrils unfurling twisting through the air. A mimic of Reaper's tone, the sharp, biting rebuttal.

Don't don't don't, the darkness whispers, Jack, don't.

He's too old to tiptoe around this anymore. He's old and he's tired and he knows, deep in him, that Reaper is too.

"This isn't some abstract sort of apology, Gabe," he says. He wipes at the visor, the gore and blood and brains leave blotchy stains on his sleeve. Chunky bits of viscera that Soldier doesn't want to think too hard about. "I'm not stupid enough to think any sort of apology would make up for everything that's--everything I did."

"Everything you did?" Reaper asks. His voice is so terribly absent. No tone beyond the rolling growl of the mask and the nanobots. Soldier misses how Gabe used to sound, the trickling, telling inflections.

"Yeah," he says.

"Always about you."

"It is this time. I should...there were a lot of things that--"

Reaper's head twists, an owl-like motion, chin tilting dramatically over his shoulder. Soldier hears it too.

Clattering.

Whispers.

Not the dark tendrils this time but human, organic sounds.

"Company," Reaper says, "just when we were getting to the good part."

"Will you kill them with me?" Soldier asks. He doesn't really need the help, probably. He could do it on his own, he's handled worse. From the sound of it there are five. Five is like a cakewalk.

He scoops his gun up from where it had been kicked. A scuff mark on the barrel; he wipes at it absently with his thumb.

"You want them dead," Reaper asks.

"I want everyone responsible to pay."

"And you?"

"I'm paying now, aren't I? Working on it at least. I know it's a debt too big for apologies."

Reaper is watching him. He can feel the gaze, cold and calculating, measuring his worth. The blank face of the mask gleams in the light.

Reaper reaches for him. His claws catch Soldier's shoulder and though the layers of fabric diminish the direct cut of the metal, Soldier can still feel the five distinct points of pressure.

Unbearable.

Terrible.

And everything goes sideways.

Soldier's stomach plummets, like the drop on a rollercoaster, tightness in his throat as weightlessness hits him in the knees.

Darkness rushes to greet him, but it isn't in his head or behind his eyes. It's happening around him, spinning endless nothing. Chittering twisted madness.

Vertigo.

He shuts his eyes but it doesn't help. He grabs at Reaper's arm where it holds him. The semi-solid weight of it, his fingers press too deeply into the flesh under the sleeve. But it's something, grounding.

He presses closer to Reaper's form. Tries to keep his gaze trained on the unchanging landscape of Reaper's mask.

Around them the darkness is ringing, laughing, chortling. Soldier doesn't think too hard about it. He refuses to. He'd given them too much stock last time, paid too much attention to the taunts.

It's thrown him off track.

It's why he's here now.

Why he can't just move past it all.

Marry me, they had said, marry me. Like it's that simple. Gabriel on one knee blushing with his hands held out in front of him and those rings. Marry me. Like it's easy.

Soldier doesn't know if the whispering he hears is a byproduct of what he wants or what Reaper is thinking. He doesn't even know if Reaper can hear them hiss the same things that he hears.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter.

He is here now.

He will do what he came to do. It's coming from the same genuine place whether egged on by the darkness or not.

The swirling trip stops as quickly as it had begun. The darkness dissipates. Soldier feels the ending in his knees, sudden weight dropping onto them without warning. He groans, lightheadedness working through him in a wave.

Reaper lets him swoon. He cradles Soldier's dead weight like it is nothing. The tendrils are supporting him too, light pressure at the base of his spine and at his hips.

Pressure at the clasps of his mask.

Reaper's fingers click against the surface, undoing the latches. Gentler than either of them have been in a long time, gentler than Soldier even really deserves.

He sucks in a breath. The air hits his lungs, not as cool and fresh as he wishes, but better than with the mask. There is something musty about it. The smell of abandonment.

Soldier blinks.

Looks around.

It is dim, wherever they have landed. Indoors from the look of things. He can make out the vague shadow of hunched furniture, plain white walls, spots of mold.

"Where are we?" he asks.

Reaper's shoulders roll. Soldier wishes he could make out an expression.

He lifts his hands. They are shaking slightly as his feels around the edges of Reaper's mask. The sharp, unforgiving points of it. Like daggers. The clips let go with an audible snap.

Reaper's face is shifting shadows as the mask drops away. No visible features.

Almost shy.

Soldier closes his eyes, lets his weight slump further against Reaper's steady form. An unmitigated display of trust, Reaper can take from it what he will.

The dizziness is still present, if Soldier focuses too hard. Sharp rebuttals at the edges of his conscious.

"Does it always feel like that?" he grumbles.

"Pretty much."

Something brushes Soldier's cheek, wet, wriggling. He opens his eyes, Reaper's tongue slithers back between his lips. Blood red. Snake-like. At least he only has one pair of eyes at the moment. Almond-shaped and brown like his old ones used to be.

"You get used to it," Reaper adds.

"The shifting too?"

Reaper looks away. His face seems to palpitate as Soldier watches, fluttering little machinations under the skin. Like he's trying to hold himself together.

An answer in itself.

"I'm sorry," Soldier says. Jack says. He's letting too many of the old emotions through to pretend to be anyone else.

"Gabe, I know it can never ever make up for it but I'm--"

"Stop."

"Gabe."

Stop, the tendrils say, brushing against Jack's cheek, tracing the shell of his ear. Stop, don't, it's too much, it's too much, God Jack please.

Sexual tones, pleading. Jack looks away.

"Where are we?" he asks again. He steps back. His joints creak and protest, a low groan working through his teeth. Travel by darkness has left him embarrassingly stiff. The darkness trails him, still clinging to his limbs. Reaper's face is impassive, lipless now. Skull-like, grinning, the teeth are white and just a little bit crooked.

"Somewhere I know. It's safe, if that's what you mean. Safe as it can be with a monster I guess."

"Doesn't that go both ways?"

"Making it about you again?"

"I don't believe you're as monstrous as you think you are. I think that...if we..."

They're both murderers. They've both turned from the ideals they once held. They've both decayed and died and been reborn into something twisted and broken.

But there's still time.

There's always time.

Some of the tendrils have begun to tug at Jack's clothes, sliding under the material. Slick and cold against the skin of his belly. His fingers twitch in his gloves. His palms have begun to sweat, just the slightest.

"Are you asking me to join Overwatch again?" Reaper says. His tone is unreadable. His face is a monster's. "How fucking sentimental of you, Jack."

Jack shakes his head. "Not Overwatch," he says, "they don't need us. Lena, Winston, Angela, they're good people. They don't need jaded fuck-ups like us dragging them down."

Reaper chuckles at that. The sound is gravestones, rubbing together. Hideous and inhuman. "You want everyone responsible to pay, you said. Are they not responsible for this?"

Angela is, somewhat. Jack has seen her three times since the fall of Overwatch. Only once did she realize who he was. Her confession had been brief, her hands shaking in front of her face. Tears on her cheeks.

Imperfect technology. Rookie mistakes.

"I'm responsible," Jack says. "I shouldn't have taken the promotion. I never should have let that come between us."

Reaper says nothing.

"I loved you back then, you know," Jack says. The confession feels like ripping off a scab. Tearing, painful, more than it has any right to be.

"You loved having someone warm to fuck. A nice mouth to cradle your dick. Don't fucking lie to me, Jackie boy."

I love you, the tendrils say, Gabe, oh God I love you. Their touch is rougher now, wrapping just slightly tighter, soft edges sharpening. Thickening. More real and less shadow. Reaper's voice is hard, graveled.

"I've wanted to kill you for so long."

"Yet you keep not doing it. Empty threats is all you are," Jack swallows. One of the tendrils slides around his throat. Slick and cool. Sensual.

"Maybe it's just more fun, seeing you like old times. Lost and sobbing for my cock. High and mighty little Boy Scout, reduced to begging for a monster to peg him."

Jack can't help but laugh at that. It escapes him like a bark. Reaper hisses at the noise. The tendrils chitter.

"Think it's funny, huh? Remembering what we reduced each other to? Maybe I should make you remember, play it out, here and now. Like old times. Fuck you hard and fast until you're crying for me."

The tendrils of darkness shrink against him, seem to lose something. Like smoke against his skin, puffing, cloying coldness. Fading despite the gruff threat of Reaper's words. The tendrils are twitching against Jack's skin, his clothes. Losing their consistency. Their whispers fading in and out. Easier to ignore.

Jack can't follow which is the truth, the bitter tone, the harsh words, or the melting darkness. He touches one of the tendrils. It slides from between his leather-clad fingers like oil. Wax.

"Gabe."

"I'm not fucking Gabe, don't you get it yet, Jack. Gabe is dead and you killed him." Reaper's voice catches in a way Jack is not used to hearing. An octave shift. Real, true actual emotion.

Jack looks up from where the darkness is rapidly dissipating from his palm.

Reaper's face is Gabe's face. Jack doesn't know if it's an accident or not. But he gets to watch the emotions flutter across the features he has known and missed.

The arched brows, slightly furrowed in the center. The lips, full, pouting, frowning as he puts the sight together. He looks down and away. He is biting his lip. This was not a development he had planned for, Jack can read that much in his expression.

And then Jack blinks.

And Gabe is solidly Reaper once more. Four sets of eyes, arranged like a spider's all clustered around one another. His cheeks shredding as Jack watches, skin and muscle flaking away.

"I should have let that kid kill you," Reaper says.

"And you call me sentimental."

"Fuck off," he says. The words are hollow, they hold no bite. The tendrils have all but gone. One or two still press against Jack's form. Only semi-solid now. Breaking down with Reaper's will to fight.

They're both tired.

Jack had been right about that much.

"I should have said yes," Jack says.

He tugs at the fingers of his glove. His right hand. The material slides easily, up over his wrist. Over his palm.

And there.

He holds his hand up. The ring is gold, slightly dull in the light. Battered and scuffed from being worn for twenty years.

"I should have said yes, okay?"

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" Reaper asks. But his expression is roiling again. Folding in on itself. Wispy clots of smoke from his eyes, like tears.

"You're proposing to a dead man," Reaper says. "That ring doesn't mean shit, Jack. It never did."

"Is that what you think this is?"

"Isn't it? Seeking me out. Searching for me. To show me a piece of a past you've convinced yourself will mean something to me."

"You're not a very good liar either, Gabe," Jack says.

Reaper flinches, hisses. His skin turns black, runs like oil down his face, over his neck. Leaving behind pulpy, gore, musculature and bone. Birth in reverse. Jack fishes the second ring out from under his shirt.

"Don't run from me," he says. "I'm not scared of you, Gabe."

Reaper makes another sound. High-pitched keening. Like something dying, being tortured. His features rebuilding. Layers reforming. Reuniting into something vaguely human. 

"Look at me," Jack says.

Reaper does. He is shaking, vibrating. The tendrils of darkness coil and shift and wriggle against their host flesh. Sprouting out of him.

The ring hangs from Jack's fist, dangling from the chain it has been on for five years. Jack gets a new one, every couple of years. The thought of losing it is more painful than he cares to admit.

"Gabe," he says.

"I never asked for this, Jack."

"I know you didn't."

"I didn't want it to be this way."

Jack licks his lips. The scar is tough and familiar under the swipe of his tongue. Reaper is shivering, in pain, tormented. And it's all Jack's fault again.

"I don't care," Jack says. "It is what it is. We are what we are. I'm here now, you're here."

"I'm not. You don't get it. You aren't listening--"

"Then why haven't you killed me? Or the others. The watchpoints are the same. These kids haven't exactly been creative in their revival. If you aren't Gabe, if it doesn't matter, then why haven't you gone in and done it."

"I've tried killing you. Didn't seem to stick."

"That's cute," Jack says flatly. "But I'm tired. I'm goddamn tired. Aren't you? You have to be."

"I won't go back to them."

"I'm honestly not asking you to. We can work it out. Just the two of us. The way it's...the way it always should have been."

The ring sways, trembling in his grip.

"We've always been stronger together, Gabe. So, let's do it. Together."

Stronger, the tendrils say, faster please God make me feel it.

Jack closes his eyes. Reaper's fingers, metal and cold trace the line of his jaw. His other hand raises, tugs gently on the ring. Jack watches as it falls into his palm. As it melts against the dark, into Reaper, even through the material of his gloves.

"You've always been too damn stubborn," Reaper says, looking down. He has three eyes, but his gaze is the same fond softness that Jack remembers from their past. "You get a fool idea and you just can't let it go."

"It's part of the charm, isn't it?"

Reaper's arm slips behind Jack's head, fingers in his hair. Sharp metal points. He leans his forehead against Jack's. The skin of his brow is damp, viscous. His features rebuild and reassemble. This close though and Jack can hardly tell what they're switching between.

The cut of a tooth, the swipe of a tongue. It's all the same.

He brings his own hands up, looped under Reaper's arms, clutching at his shoulders.

Squeezing him close.

Hopeless old men. Monstrous. Jaded. And stronger.

Perfect.

Reaper makes a sound, a rolling, grating little whine. The tendrils are back, like they had never been gone, weaving around Jack's limbs. Enveloping him.

It should be terrifying.

But it isn't.

Jack doesn't have it in him to be scared of Gabe or death or this thing between them anymore.

"You still want me like old times?" Reaper asks. His manufactured voice trembles just the slightest. Some of Gabe leaking through. "Even like this?"

"Pretty much."

There are probably a whole host of fucked up reasons why. In truth the shifting, tentacled thing before him should be anything but lust inspiring. But it's Gabe. It's Gabe. And Jack always wants Gabe.

Even back then, after their fallout, Jack promoted and bent over his desk or pushed up against his personal lockers. He has always, always wanted it.

"Take you clothes off. I want to see what's mine."

Jack shifts. The darkness constricts his movement some, doesn't let him get too far. The tendrils help, in their own way. Something like it. Tugging and pulling and slithering beneath the layers of Jack's clothes.

Reaper's hands are busy with his own coat. It puddles beneath them and the darkness shoves it away. Same with Jack's discarded clothes. Shuffled out of sight.

The stale air swaddles Jack's flesh. Unnervingly cold, especially with the added moisture from the tentacles. They curl around his forearms, rub against his nipples. Lower still.

Jack groans, his eyes flutter shut.

Reaper chuckles in his ear. His knuckles track down Jack's cheek. Cold, cold, cold.

As dead men should be.

Jack pulls Reaper flush against him. Shifts and grinds and fights for warmth.

The spark of it between them.

Tight and electric heat, coiling in Jack's gut. Spreading.

The tendrils work his cock, dragging back and forth against the skin. Slick, lubed. And Jack fucks into it. He pants, open-mouthed, against Reaper's neck. The necrotic flesh. Paler than Gabe's healthy brown, almost grey. Jack doesn't care.

He bites the flesh; small, needling bites. The bits of pain to remind them who they are and what this is. Reaper shudders against him. Reaper is hard against his thigh.

"Hard and fast," Jack says, in a rush. The words trip over his tongue. Reaper's claws draw thin lines of blood on his hip. "That's what you promised."

"Jack..." Reaper says, his voice hissing. Drawn out. One of the tendrils ruts against the cleft of Jack's ass. Foreign and cold and tensing against his cheeks, not quite pushing between. Reaper shudders against him and Jack wonders how much sensory information is passed between them.

"Do it," Jack says, harsh. His voice breaking into a low groan when the tentacle wriggles against him once more. "I think we both know you won't break me, being a little rough."

A little.

Jack will have bruises on his hips tomorrow from Reaper's grip, maybe scars too, from where his metal fingers are gouging. But Jack wants it, chases it. The added layers of sensation don't do anything to frighten him off.

The tendril pushes more fully, more powerfully, and Jack reaches behind himself with a free hand to pull himself more open. The tendril catches, Jack gasps.

It is tapered, smaller at the head. It works into him easily, slick and horrendously cold. The hand not holding himself open clutches spasmodically at Reaper's shoulder, his neck. The clammy skin beneath his palm, moist and inhumanly cool.

The tendril spears him open, working slowly, as Jack grunts and groans and fights to remember what's like to relax against such an intrusion.

Reaper chuckles against his cheek. His tongue swipes under Jack's eye, his teeth scraping Jack's jaw. Sensation in too many places. Jack does not open his eyes to see what monstrous form Reaper is wearing. Unhinged jaw or whatever it may be.

"Look at you, Jack," Reaper coos. It could be sarcastic, but Jack assumes not, if the way Reaper has begun to buck lightly against him says anything at all. "You're so into it."

"What can I say," Jack says, panting, "I guess I've just missed you. Or this. Or both." He shifts to spread his legs and another two tendrils materialize to hold the weight, wrapping around his thigh, his knee, helping to keep him spread open.

"Missed fucking?"

"Missed everything. Gabe, God, I've missed you."

It must do something. Mean something.

The tentacle inside of him slides deeper. Not fucking into him, not pulling out, just spreading him wider, slicking his insides. It gets thicker, the further in it gets. The stretch has Jack seeing stars, grunting and moaning as it plows impossibly further. The thickness brushes his prostate where it had been missed by the smaller tip.

Jack lets his head loll at the now constant friction. Drool drips onto his chest. His eyes are watering. Reaper's face is Gabe's and he is watching him come apart, come undone. Sloppy and messy and lost to it. His chin tips forward.

And then a second blunt sensation of pressure at his already straining entrance. Another tendril, just as cool and as lubricated as the first. It furrows and fucks and presses against his asshole and it's twin that is already there and Jack moans and tears at Reaper's shoulder as it bullies its way inside.

It hurts, it fucking hurts, but Jack bites his lips over the pain and repeats Gabe's name over and over. Slurring and cursing.

"Oh, Jack," Reaper says, over another shudder. His voice catching another tone that Jack almost recognizes.

Jack, Jack, oh fuck, oh Jack, the tendrils say.

"You're doing so well, Jackie boy."

Jack cannot form a coherent response. The second tendril does not push as deep, it doesn't need to. It seems to cradle against his insides, vibrating lightly against his prostate. Jack can barely register the words whispered against his temple over the sensation. The familiar tone though.

Jack turns his head, finds Reaper's mouth on almost pure instinct. He's too uncoordinated, too fucked out to really kiss, but their lips collide and Reaper's tongue presses against his and it's really all Jack needs.

Another pulse against his prostate, another deep press by the first tendril and the added sensation of Reaper's human tongue licking into his mouth and Jack comes.

His muscles shake and contract and his fingernails dig furrows across Reaper's shoulders. Dead flesh beneath the nail. Little flecks of oily black gore.

He is staring at his hands when the last shaking echoes of his orgasm leave him. His palms pressed tightly against Reaper's still clothed chest. Black blood and slick tarnishing the gold surface of the ring.

Jack takes a shuddering, in-drawn breath as the tentacles seem to dissipate within him. The press and stretch of them simply melting away. Jack shifts, and hisses. His asshole clenching around nothing, lances of pain at the feeling of being overexerted. Discomfort as the slick from the tendrils begins to leak out of him. Dripping down the backs of his thighs.

Reaper is still mostly clothed. His jacket the only thing shed. Jack curls his fingers on Reaper's pecs, the material is smooth. Slightly warm from Jack's body heat.

Reaper's cock is still hard against his thigh.

Jack is exhausted, bone-tired from his orgasm, from taking so much into himself at once. Put he sinks to the ground and the tendrils supporting him let him go. Touch his neck and his back. Coil around his hips and his torso. Swaddling him as he reaches for the zipper of Reaper's pants.

The leather is shiny and slippery. From the tendrils, from Jack's own cum, Jack cannot be sure. But the zipper goes down easy. And Reaper's cock is very much the same as Jack remembers.

A little less color to it now, paler than Gabe's ever was before the explosion. But the size and the heft and the weight of it are the same. The stubborn bit of foreskin that Jack has to tug down before he can tongue fully at the glans. Reaper's balls, smooth and heavy in his palm. Reaper is warmer here, in this intimate place, than he is anywhere else. Echoes of warmth on Jack's tongue. The memory of what it was to be fully alive.

His skin is slick with the odd lubricant of the tendrils, but it is as tasteless as ever. Reaper's precome is less pungently salty. Jack closes his eyes. Hollows his cheeks as he sucks, tongue wrapping partially around the length.

Reaper's fingers find his hair. Cold metal claws.

"Jack," he says. "Oh fuck, Jack."

Yes, the tendrils whisper--chittering and hissing right into Jack's ear. Yes, Jesus Christ, Jack just like that, Jack.

Jack lets his eyes drift open, lazy, half-lidded. His gaze scours up the covered lines of Reaper's abs. The shaking muscles of Reaper's stomach. He looks at Reaper's face.

Gabe's face.

His expression folding and breaking as he comes. Beautiful in that moment. More poetic than Jack is comfortable admitting. His load spills out over Jack's tongue, and Jack swallows down what he can.

Gabe's eyes are closed. Gabe's hands, clawed and cruel as they are, shake in Jack's hair. Gabe's dick slips from between his lips.

Gabe breathes. Once, twice. Deeply. In and out.

And then his face shifts.

And he is Reaper again.

But it doesn't matter.

Jack wipes at his chin, anchors a hand on Reaper's side to pull himself to standing. They lean against each other. Breathing. Just breathing. The darkness shifts and curls around them. Palpitating. The same rhythm as Jack's heartbeat, as their synchronized breathing.

The ring on Jack's finger catches the light. Smeared with ichor, Jack wipes at it with his thumb.

It doesn't really matter. It's merely a symbol. They don't need it to represent what they already know; what has brought them together through death and time and all the awful terrible mistakes.

Jack breathes against Reaper's too cool skin. His asshole aches. His muscles protest. He is old and he is tired.

And he is absolutely still in love.

**Author's Note:**

> And there we go. This is about as happy as I know how to write so I hope it isn't too disappointing. My love and thanks to everyone who read the first two and gave encouragements!! I read and reread and TRIPLE read every comment so thank you all so so much
> 
> If I missed any tags or if anything seems Majorly off let me know. Come find me on tumblr (vrunkas) if you want.


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